PM speaks to Obama, discusses Osama's killing

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama on Monday night discussed over phone the American operation that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in Pakistan and the situation in the region.

A PMO spokesman said Singh and Obama discussed further growth and development of Indo-US relations.

"It was a warm conversation which covered wide-ranging subjects," he said.

A statement issued by White House in Washington said Obama spoke to Singh to discuss the "successful American action against Osama bin Laden." However, it did not give further details.

This is the first conversation between the two leaders since the killing of Osama on May 2 in a raid by US Special Forces in the garrison city of Abbotabad.

The White House statement said the two leaders also reviewed progress in implementing the initiatives launched during Obama's November 2010 visit to India.

"The two leaders re-affirmed their commitment to building a global, strategic partnership, including defence cooperation, and looked forward to the upcoming meetings of the Strategic Dialogue, the Homeland Security Dialogue, the Joint Space Working Group, and the High-Technology Cooperation Group," the statement said.

The two leaders also discussed global and regional issues of mutual concern.

Singh had termed bin Laden's killing as a significant step forward and asked the international community and Pakistan in particular to work comprehensively to end the activities of all terror groups.

The Prime Minister had hoped that bin Laden's elimination would deal a "decisive blow" to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups".

The telephonic talk came on a day when the US President raised questions about the possibility that "some people inside of government" in Pakistan may have been involved in providing support structure for the slain terrorist.

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he told the 'CBS News' in his first interview after bin Laden's death.

"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was," Obama said.